Survivance: an Indigenous Game for Change

Survivance: An Indigenous Game for Change Elizabeth LaPensée Simon Fraser University, School of Interactive Arts & Technology Abstract Historical trauma caused by colonization has had generational effects on the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing of Indigenous communities. Survivance is a social media game for change that brings players through the Indigenous hero’s journey on a path to recovery through quests and acts of survivance. This paper briefly describes the game prototype and elaborates on the impact it has had on players from the urban Indigenous community in the Portland, Oregon, United States so far. Keywords: game, Survivance, Indigenous, Oregon. 1 Introduction 1.1 The Inspiration he urban Indigenous community in Portland, Oregon in the United States faces high rates of poverty drug and alcohol addictions, Type T2 Diabetes, educational dropouts, homicide, domestic violence, child abuse, sexual abuse, homicides, and suicides according to findings included in The Native American Community in Multnomah County: An Unsettling Profile (Curry-Stevens, et al., 2011). The striking disparities speak to the wide-reaching and long-term effects of colonization on Indigenous peoples that include the loss of land, culture, and lives. In response and in the hope of healing the community, the Portland-based Native American non-profit organization Wisdom of the Elders 1 | INTERSEMIOSE | Revista Digital | ANO II, N. 04 | Jul/Dez 2013 | ISSN 2316-316X Elizabeth LaPensée (WISDOM) and its sister Northwest Indian Storytellers Association (NISA) created the multimedia curriculum project “Discovering Our Story” (WISDOM, 2009). Survivance (WISDOM, 2010) is a social game adaptation of “Discovering Our Story” that translates the curriculum and video content of storytelling into gameplay [Figure 1]. It exists within the larger “Games for Change” movement, spearheaded by game industry experts such as Eric Zimmerman and Jane McGonigal. As McGonigal (2011) believes, games can “save the world.” Her recent work is based on the idea that reality is broken: modern existence is fraught with unhappiness and isolation. She looks to games, which have the ability to stimulate the mind and create psychological benefits through engaging in play, as the cure. By playing games, we can connect to social networks and extend ourselves into new forms of community. Survivance contributes to the movement by showing the healing effects of social gameplay in the urban Indigenous community of Portland, Oregon. Figure 1. Symbol for the Wanderer Phase in Survivance 1.2 The Game Design Survivance (www.survivance.org) begins by asking players to choose a quest in any part of the Native American Hero’s Journey that they feel applies to them or will help them. There are three prototype quests per phase of the journey. The phases within the game are The Orphan (“questioning our circumstances”), The Wanderer (“wandering in search of answers in unfamiliar places”), The | INTERSEMIOSE | Revista Digital | ANO II, N. 04 | Jul/Dez 2013 | ISSN 2316-316X 2 Survivance: An Indigenous Game for Change Caretaker (“befriending and caring about others”), and The Warrior (“confronting a challenge”). The Changer (“returning, transformed, to help others start their journeys”) and The Elder continue the journey and are beyond the scope of the game quests. Once a player completes a quest, they then create an “act of survivance” [Figure 2] in any medium to represent and reflect on their experience of completing the quest. An act of survivance is a form of self-determination as inspired by Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor’s definition of “survivance.” Vizenor (1994) defines survivance as “an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or a survivable name. Native survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, tragedy, and victimry. Survivance means the right of succession or reversion of an estate, and in that sense, the estate of native survivancy” (p. vii). Survivance is more than mere survival—specifically, the survival of Indigenous peoples in the face of colonization, victimization, and attempted dominance by settlers—it is a way of life that nourishes Indigenous ways of knowing. Figure 2. Acts of Survivance for The Caretaker: The Giving Quest Players are welcome to share their acts of survivance across social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and file hosting services such as YouTube and Vimeo. Survivance thus connects to and reinforces existing paths of Indigenous self- determination in online spaces that are more likely to be seen and shared. The game’s website either links to acts of survivance internally or externally and keeps a trail of the player’s movement from one quest to another. 3 | INTERSEMIOSE | Revista Digital | ANO II, N. 04 | Jul/Dez 2013 | ISSN 2316-316X Elizabeth LaPensée 1.3 The Players The Survivance players whose experiences are explored in this paper are Indigenous students at Portland State University who participate in the urban Portland Indigenous community. The ten core players wrote open-ended reflections online prior to playing and after playing. In some instances, the core players participated in talking circles: a unique Indigenous research method that involves open-ended discussion between the researcher and participant(s), who are recognized as equal collaborators and contributors to the research (Lavallée, 2009). Three additional players add a layer of validation to these ten core player experiences. The validation players were introduced to the game through recommendations from previous players and engaged in playing Survivance without first writing an introductory reflection. They contributed written open-ended reflections after completing gameplay and have participated in talking circles. Their experiences are useful because they suggest what gameplay could look like outside of the context of a research study. The journey of playing Survivance is broken into Motivation, Quest Journey, and Act of Survivance. “Motivation” reflects on the perspectives and in some instances clear motivation that players entered the game with. The “Quest Journey” details the reflections the players shared in writing and during talking circles about their experience playing through a quest. “Act of Survivance” describes the acts of survivance the players created—an act of survivance being a story in any medium inspired by the quest journey. The descriptions involve looking closely at the act as well as integrating reflections from writings and talking circles with players. The motivations, quest journeys, and acts of survivance fall into the areas of “Culture,” “Identity,” and “Wellbeing,” described further in the following sections. 2 Motivation Since the impact of the game on the community is reliant on individual players’ selections of quests and unique acts of survivance, motivation is an important factor to understand. A player’s interests, life experiences, and aspirations prior to playing | INTERSEMIOSE | Revista Digital | ANO II, N. 04 | Jul/Dez 2013 | ISSN 2316-316X 4 Survivance: An Indigenous Game for Change Survivance shape motivation. Before playing a quest in Survivance and creating an act of survivance, players wrote a short reflection that involved answering the question: What interests you in playing Survivance? Although each response was unique, the self- described motivations fit under the categories “Culture,” “Identity,” and “Wellbeing.” “Culture” represents the continuation of, revitalization of, and active presence of traditions, beliefs, language, traditional stories, and family stories. “Identity” involves the seeking of, acceptance of, or reconnection with ancestry and relations. “Wellbeing” is the act of or promotion of being physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy. The forms of motivation across the core players were almost evenly distributed— three players were motivated by Culture, three players were motivated by Identity, and four players were motivated by Wellbeing. The three validation players were also evenly distributed across the motivations. Of Culture, players were interested specifically in continuation of language, revitalization of traditional stories, the active presence of family stories, and the active presence of spirituality. In Identity, players were informed by recognizing collective identity, exploring a loss of identity due to family members denying Indigenous ancestry, and disconnection from identity because of physical or familial distance from the peoples. Since the core players are limited to ten players and the validation players are limited to three players, there may be a myriad of other possible motivations missing from this description. For example, I walked into Survivance as a player motivated by the active presence of traditional stories, which fits under Culture. I wanted to explore traditional stories and understand ways to adapt them into contemporary forms (such as digital art, animation, games, and comics) that would still honor their traditional forms. I also hoped that these stories would reach the next generations and inspire youth to tell their stories in any medium. Further, the majority of the core players have only completed one quest each. As I played through the game, I found that my motivations became multifold and dipped between Culture, Identity, and/or Wellbeing. For example, at times I was motivated to express my mixed Identity as an Irish, Anishinaabe, and Métis person. At others, I recognized my own need for developing

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